Martial Arts and Claws
 

OK, the Karate skill represents knowing advanced striking knoweldge, but there are certain things you can't use it with, including claws and likely other similar natural weapons.

Realistically this doesn't make much sense, if I come from a race with claws there will be advanced strikes that take advantage of them, so can anyone explain this?

Re: Martial Arts and Claws
 

I can't give you a reference, but I believe Martial Arts added that races that naturally have claws and strikers and so on can use them as part of fighting styles developed by that race.
Otherwise a simple Perk would allow them to be used.

Re: Martial Arts and Claws
 

Actually, no Perk is required. Your Claws work with your Martial Arts skills by default.

Re: Martial Arts and Claws
 

By the Basic Set skill definitions, Brawling works fine with Claws, including the damage bonuses, but other unarmed skills don't. However, Martial Arts,, p.57, suggests that Karate should work with Claws.

By strong implication, though, Boxing still doesn't. I seem to recall this coming up somewhere when we were sorting out Martial Arts 2100. Basically, Boxing striking forms don't exploit claws very well. A race with claws will presumably tend to develop styles incorporating Karate rather than Boxing.

Re: Martial Arts and Claws
 

Meh, this is needlessly non-generic. A race with claws only on their hands would likely develop a style that used something game-mechanically identical to boxing but took advantage of claws.

Re: Martial Arts and Claws
 

Claws and suitably-themed Strikers and Natural Weapons (those on the hands and feet) should be readily usable with Karate, although if such Advantages are extremely rare (such that there is unlikely to be many/any styles incorporating them) it may be appropriate to require a Perk. Personally, I allow for a Monstrous Combat Perk to be able to use all Natural Weapons and the like (including teeth, horns, etc) with Karate. For an Under the Hood look, this is functionally Skill Adaptation (Brawling techniques default to Karate).

I always think of Boxing as being "Punch-only Karate." So long as Claws are common enough to have been incorporated into a few styles (or one big one), I see no issue with allowing Boxing to make use of them. At worst, a Perk should suffice.

Re: Martial Arts and Claws
 

And there's nothing in the rules that says Claws has to be literal "claws." Claws could be knuckle spikes, for instance. If you really see a problem, maybe say the damage is the better of the Claws bonus and the skill bonus (Karate is about overcoming the limitations of barehanded strikes?).

Re: Martial Arts and Claws
 

Those are a pretty good points. Realistically, the damage bonuses of Brawling, Boxing, and Karate would have two components - one being making your fist/foot/whatever into a more efficient striking surface, the other being training to get the most power into your strikes from your muscles. The former would be a straight bonus to damage and wouldn't stack with Claws and the like (which already serve as efficient striking surfaces), while the latter would be treated like Trained ST from Technical Grappling and would. If just using current rules, however, it would arguably be most balanced to have Brawling work as-is and have Boxing/Karate have +1 of their total damage bonus not stack with Claws and the like. So, take a character with thr 2d and some Claws that do thr+1. Maximized Brawling, he can punch for 2d+1, claw for 2d+3/3d-1. Maximized Boxing/Karate, he can punch for 2d+3/3d-1, claw for 2d+4/3d (so he's at -1 damage when clawing relative to MA RAW).

Re: Martial Arts and Claws
 

Honestly, I'd just have unarmed fighting skills modify punching and kicking damage completely blind to whether the damage they're modifying comes from ST, Claws, Striking ST, or something else. That is:

1. Start with ST.
2. Add any specialized ST (Arm ST, Striking ST, or anything weirder) that affects the unarmed attack in question.
3. Find thrust for that ST total.
4. Modify thrust as necessary for the basic attack type or technique (e.g., bite and punch are thrust-1).
5. Add any damage modifiers for Claws.
6. Add any damage modifiers for skills.

The most important principle to bear in mind is that you can count only a single modifier at each of the last three steps. You can't "stack" Exotic Hand Strike with Uppercut, Claws with Striker, or Boxing with Karate . . . and if you stick a claw-like fist weapon on your hand, you can't apply both its effects and those of natural Claws, or treat it as a weapon that gets Weapon Master bonuses and still claim Karate bonuses. You receive at most one attack-type effect, one striking-surface effect, and one skill effect.

Re: Martial Arts and Claws
 

The only difference I'd look to use is to make the stuff modify ST, and look up the last.